Post by warehamgas on Oct 20, 2019 21:18:38 GMT

Dont know if there’s enough interest here for the 100 competition but thought I’d start a thread for those who want to join in. I’ve just about got over the end of the season!

The squads have been chosen. Welsh Fire is supposed to represent Gloucestershire, Somerset and Glamorgan and we’re all supposed to crowd over the bridge to cheer them on. In the end two Gloucestershire players, Payne and Higgins and one Somerset player, Banton. There are a lot of strange combinations but I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised by that. We have players in Nottingham, 2 in Manchester, 1 for the Oval, 2 with the Southern Spirit. With an open auction our counties were never going to fit a neat pattern of players playing for their “local” team. I wonder whether this whole competition is going to really change county cricket as we know it.

Post by cornwallgas on Oct 21, 2019 12:44:38 GMT

I could never support a Welsh team!🤮 even if it did contain Glos and Somerset players. If they were called West Country Wurzels and had some Welsh players and Steve Smith and Mitchell Stark and played at Taunton or Bristol that would be different (even if they were sponsored by mini cheddars😁)

Post by chewbacca on Oct 21, 2019 14:11:13 GMT

I could never support a Welsh team!🤮 even if it did contain Glos and Somerset players. If they were called West Country Wurzels and had some Welsh players and Steve Smith and Mitchell Stark and played at Taunton or Bristol that would be different (even if they were sponsored by mini cheddars😁)

Post by warehamgas on Oct 21, 2019 14:27:04 GMT

I could never support a Welsh team!🤮 even if it did contain Glos and Somerset players. If they were called West Country Wurzels and had some Welsh players and Steve Smith and Mitchell Stark and played at Taunton or Bristol that would be different (even if they were sponsored by mini cheddars😁)

They have no Welsh players.

No they don’t but they are calling Colin Ingram, with his Glamorgan connections the local icon! Bit of a stretch!

Post by jackthegas on Oct 21, 2019 15:29:03 GMT

Firstly, I do recognise that change can be a good thing. However, I think trying to ape the structure of existing tournaments like the IPL and the Big Bash is short sighted. I am not adverse to playing the tournament in a block with every game on the TV, despite the risks presented by the weather in the UK but I cannot understand how playing cricket in 7 Cities is going to increase attendances. I live in Worcester and I am not going to travel to Birmingham to watch cricket. There are venues like Cardiff and Birmingham that have struggled to fill venues consistently in the Blast. I am not sure this will change that. I just think that the spread of people in the UK does not lend itself to a City based structure.

I was in favour of a hybrid model using the existing County structure. I see no reason why you could not move to 2 divisions of 9. Finals day could consist of a 2nd vs 3rd placed semi - final, a 9th vs 10th or 10th vs 11th placed promotion play off, followed by a final to determine the overall winner. I would have had a clear differential between the two divisions including significantly more prize money for Division One Counties. If every team played everyone in their division once during the group phase then you have a similar number of games to the number you’re going to have in the hundred. You could still play it over the summer holidays and you could televise all Division One games and no Division Two games. You could still have 10 games on terrestrial TV and could have a weekly highlights programme on the BBC as well. I also see no reason why squads for the Championship and 50 over cricket must be aligned with squads for the T20 competition. You could still have a draft but you’d get to retain existing rivalries, the bigger counties with bigger grounds would probably end up in Division One, but at least everyone is still involved. If the BBC were genuinely worried about fitting T20 cricket into a 3 hour window then enforce sensible overrates.

But, we are where we are. I thought the draft worked well. There are some interesting squads but there are some uninspiring picks too. It’s depressing seeing someone like Olly Stone miss out for Hardus Viljoen or James Bracey get overlooked while 33 year old South African Kolpaker Chris Cooke gets picked is not ideal but predictable. It’s not a problem unique to the Hundred.

The area of the game that stands to benefit from this unequivocally is the women’s game. Alignment with the men’s teams is important, as is increased exposure, but it’s the money brought in to the game as a result of the new broadcast deal which gives English cricketers half a chance of closing the gap to their Australian counterparts. I still believe that an equally lucrative TV deal could have been struck whilst maintaining the existing 18 side men’s structure.

Post by warehamgas on Oct 21, 2019 16:42:37 GMT

With the teams only playing eight games, one against each opponent and another match against their local neighbour it means they will be only 4 home games. Clearly the income isn’t going to come from gate receipts but from advertising and TV coverage. This being the case I am surprised that enthusiastic centres like Taunton, Hove, Worcester will be ignored. Cardiff and the Welsh Fire will be dependent upon Glamorgan to fill the ground. There won’t be many going from Somerset but perhaps some from Bristol might go, others will know better than me about that. TV will soon pick up on empty grounds or even grounds not full. For TV the atmospheres will be very important, we will see.

Jack, your point about Ollie Stone and James Bracey against Viljoen and Cooke is a good one. But I was also pleased that the squads do appear to have a lot of English talent. Interesting to see what the BBC was saying (not really interesting, but I use it a lot!) about teams with the best squads. Despite what they said I thought the Manchester Originals, Welsh Fire and Southern Spirit look to be strong. Following it last night I thought that the teams were looking much closer at the bowlers and preferring overseas bowlers to overseas batsmen.

Post by cornwallgas on Oct 21, 2019 18:34:02 GMT

I could never support a Welsh team!🤮 even if it did contain Glos and Somerset players. If they were called West Country Wurzels and had some Welsh players and Steve Smith and Mitchell Stark and played at Taunton or Bristol that would be different (even if they were sponsored by mini cheddars😁)

They have no Welsh players.

No, but..if the completely fictitious wurzels had some welsh players I would support/look out for their result ahead of the welsh windbags team or the trent trouts or any other stupidly named franchise in this stupid tournament

Post by irishrover on Nov 10, 2019 2:45:51 GMT

Sorry been away for ages but agree with all the sentiment on here.

Primarily I am a Westcountry cricket fan so the idea of a tournament without a real Westcountry prescence is a complete anathema to me. I see no reason why you need what amounts to 3 teams in the South East.

There's so many issues with this but it all comes down to the fact that the ECB has seen 18 Domestic bases as a problem rather than an asset for some time. With a bit of imagination, particularly in terms of strengthening the links between the professional and recreational game, this did not need to be the case. But they lack all imagination as the team names and cringeworthy 'values statements' for these franchises embarrassingly demonstrate.

Having said all that....Until last season I thought the ECB was chasing an audience for this that didn't exist. Now I'm not quite so sure but I still think it is a hell of a risk to take with the health of the game in this country. I can't see myself watching much of this stuff and it's an issue I have with all the franchise cricket. The standard of IPL/Big Bash is good but to me it lacks context. Franchises are ininteresting to me - who cares whether an identikit team with no history beats another one or not especially as player flit between them all the time. The Asian cricket fans I know who are really into the IPL seem to follow it in a much more individualised way and often switch allegiance when players they like switch teams. I struggle to see that kind of approach chiming with British sports fandom.